A Volunteer Team of Physicians Helps Power the U.S. Para Swim Team

Whenever the U.S. Paralympics Swimming team attends a training camp or competition, athletes are supported by a volunteer team of physicians working behind the scenes to help them perform at their best. 

Moving between pool decks, training rooms and venues around the world, these medical professionals draw on expertise in sports medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, pediatrics, and other specialties to address issues as they arise and ensure athletes can compete safely at the highest level. They do all of this while stepping away from their own busy practices, donating their time and energy to support the swimmers. 

“Anytime I’m able to help someone work through an issue, or an illness, and remain in competition and be able to do what they came to do is very gratifying,” said Dr. Melissa Tinney, a physical medicine and rehabilitative specialist with a focus in adaptive sports at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System in Michigan. “To be able to help as part of that process, to help them perform their best and do what they need to do as an athlete is very gratifying.” 

Tinney is one of the newer volunteer physicians with the U.S. Para swimming team, having joined last year. But her experience with adaptive athletes spans many years, beginning with her work with men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned home with spinal cord injuries, limb loss, brain injury and other trauma. Helping them discover adaptive sports, and in some cases move into competition, led her to become more involved with the National Veteran Wheelchair Games. 

“And then seeing all these different sports, it was amazing, and I just felt like I could really be part of this and support the Paralympic Movement,” she said. “It was a natural progression.” 

Tinney met Dr. Stephanie Tow when the two taught a course on supporting adaptive athletes through the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation last year. Tow, who serves as the head team physician and medical director for the U.S. Para swim team, invited Tinney to join the volunteer staff. 

Tow was in medical school when she experienced her own injuries. Although temporary, the experience gave her insight into how the world works — or doesn’t — for people with disabilities. 

“Our society has so much more work to do to improve access for people with disabilities,” she said. “What happens when you get to a lecture hall that only has stairs? What happens when the elevators and escalators aren’t working somewhere, or the handicapped doors aren’t working properly? How do you help someone with a visual impairment and make all their learning materials accessible? It just really opened my eyes, and I gained an interest in helping to advocate more for people with disabilities.” 

Tow’s background makes her especially well-suited to working with Para swimmers. A swimmer herself, she has extensive training in sports medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and pediatric rehabilitation medicine, giving her experience with both acquired disabilities and congenital conditions. Early in medical school, she began volunteering with adaptive and Para sports groups and quickly recognized a gap in the field. 

“There’s no one formal training path or program to be a sports medicine physician for adaptive and Para sports,” said Tow, who specializes in pediatric rehabilitation medicine and pediatric sports medicine at the University of Colorado and Children’s Hospital of Colorado. “And so I identified that as a strong area of interest, it became a passion of time, and with all that training it helped equip me to be a physician for athletes with disabilities.” 

She became a certified medical classifier for Para swimming in 2017, administering the tests and evaluations that determine an athlete’s competition classification. After helping manage a number of different medical situations at meets while serving in that role, Tow in 2020 spoke with Queenie Nichols, the U.S. Paralympics Swimming high-performance director at the time, about becoming the team’s head physician on a volunteer basis. 

Now, as head team physician and medical director, her work includes both administrative and hands-on responsibilities. She collaborates with the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee sports medicine team and other governing bodies, works with U.S. Paralympics Swimming Director Amanda Duke Boulet on medical staffing for camps and competitions, keeps athlete medical histories up to date, keeps inventory of medical supplies and medications for medical staff to be equipped to travel with the team and consults with athletes throughout the year as medical needs arise. 

Tow trained with a number of mentors who were, in turn, trained by Dr. Joseph Chorley. So when Chorley reached out about volunteering with the Para swim team, the answer was a resounding yes. 

A former college swimmer and coach, Chorley has long been passionate about the sport. As a specialist in pediatric sports medicine at Texas Children’s Hospital, he is drawn to the individuality of each athlete. 

“And when you talk about Para, it’s even more so,” he said. “I really dig the biomechanics of able-bodied swimming because I think it’s really cool, and then you really have to up your game to work with people who may have neuromuscular problems, or limb deficiencies, or those kinds of things. You’ve got to take your level of understanding to another level. The people I work with in Para have been just fantastic, but from an intellectual and professional standpoint it’s a challenge and it’s demanding because, again, every patient is a little bit different in every classification. I really enjoy the heck out of it.” 

All Team USA athletes have their own medical teams at home, so the volunteer doctors who travel with them to training camps, World Series meets, world championships or the Paralympic Games are not their regular physicians. Still, Chorley said, they must know each athlete’s often complex medical history inside and out in order to provide the best care and make critical decisions when it matters most. 

He approaches the role as a “jack of all trades,” ready to step in wherever needed, whether at training camps or competitions. That includes being certified as a classifier and supporting athletes through that process. 

“If I can be a resource to them and make that stressful time a little less stressful, and be there when they have questions so that they’re classified as accurately as possible, that’s a big part of my job,” he said. 

Tinney said her role is also about meeting athletes where they are in the moment, whether that means talking through an issue leading up to competition, treating an acute illness or injury, or helping plan follow-up care once they return home. 

“It’s unique because I am volunteering; I don’t necessarily have an ongoing relationship or an everyday situation where I’m working with someone,” she said. “But what’s great about it is that they know that they can trust that our medical team is fully prepared to support them and all their needs as far as when they’re in that competition or training environment.” 

Tinney said medical professionals considering volunteering should know there are many ways to make a meaningful impact. 

“When I look at the physicians who are doing the work to support Para athletes, it’s a small group when you think about the larger subset of physicians doing sports medicine or coverage for able-bodied sports,” she said. “So to me, there is no limit to how much you would be able to do or contribute to the Para sport community. The possibilities are so wide and there is such a need that it would be really gratifying for someone who is new to this space.” 

Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to USParaSwimming.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.